


Coffee Conundrum

by JA_Authoress



Series: Coffee shop AU [1]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Carry On Countdown, Deaf Baz, Light Swearing, M/M, Oblivious Simon, coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 22:49:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8641219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JA_Authoress/pseuds/JA_Authoress
Summary: Simon works at a coffee shop on campus and is harassed on a bi-weekly basis by Mr. Rude Guy with the Grey Eyes (Grey Eyes for short because Simon was lazy and didn’t know his actual name).“He didn’t even say thank you!”Penny had tried to reason with him.  “He never says thank you.  He’s got us all trained to make his drink without saying anything.  I doubt he hates you, he’s probably just having a bad day! Now, stop glaring at him and clean your damn milk pitchers, your bar is a mess!”





	

“Your favourite customer is here.”  Penny’s voice echoed in the milk fridge under the expresso machine where Simon was busy quickly shifting cartons around before his fingers froze and fell off. 

Are we talking about actual favourites, or the other kind of favourites?” Simon poked his head above the counter, narrowing blue eyes at the entrance.  _Definitely the other kind of favourite_.  “I’m busy.”  He ducked back down.

“Get out of the fridge,” Penny hissed, kicking Simon in the leg with her once black, chocolate and whip cream stained shoe.  While she didn’t kick him hard enough to hurt, the shove did knock him off balance.  He fell over with a loud grunt, just as he heard Penny’s chipper, “Hi, how are you today? The usual?”

The customer was silent ( _He’s always silent_ ), and Penny went straight to work getting a grande black coffee in a venti mug ready.

Simon fought with his shoelaces and apron strings ( _How the fuck did they managed to get tangled? I was down for two seconds!_ ).  He was released with a joyous shout and was only slightly mortified when he stood up and realized his least favourite customer was staring at him with a perfect eyebrow arched over his gorgeo—sinister! Sinister grey eyes.  (Although today they looked more of a greenish grey because of the scarf he was wearing.)

A vicious blush blossomed on Simon’s cheeks, and, after quickly retying his apron, he ran a hand through his bronze curls in an attempt to collect himself.  Grey eyes followed the motion, but Simon was too busy trying to fight off the still very noticeable blush to, well, notice.

Penny topped off the black coffee with about half a cup of whipped cream.

“Here you go!” she said with a wide smile.

Mr. Rude Guy with the Grey Eyes (Grey Eyes for short because Simon was lazy and didn’t know his actual name) nodded his thanks, long brown fingers curling around the off white mug before taking it over to the condiment bar.

Simon rested his arms on top of the espresso machine and scowled at Grey Eyes as he put his usual weird combination of chocolate, cinnamon, and vanilla powder on the mountain of whip cream.

“One,” Penny poked him in the side, “you’re doing that staring-pining thing again, and two,” there was a tug, “your apron is untied.”

“I’m not pining!” Simon sputtered, struggling to retie his apron.

Penny’s eyebrows raised high above her red cat-eye glasses.

“I’m just trying to figure out why he’s in such a bad mood all the time.”

“Uh huh,” his best friend was very unconvinced.

It was a bi-weekly activity that started at the beginning of the semester.

Simon had been working at the till, it was only his third day of working at the store after transferring to the on campus branch, being his usual ray of sunshine self, when Mr. Gorgeo—Rude Guy with the Grey Eyes stepped up and pointed to the coffee urn behind the counter, then to the grande and venti cups on display in front of the till, then pulled out his wallet.

Two coffees.  Easy enough.  He could ignore the absolutely irking fact that Grey Eyes kept his headphones in.

Simon got the two coffees, and rang him up.

Grey Eyes looked up from his wallet, and stared at the two coffees, then up at Simon with a frown. 

“No,” he said in a wonderfully deep voice with the hint of an accent Simon wasn’t familiar with (but wished he was).

Simon’s cheeks erupted in a blush—because the customer was so rude, not because of how attractive he was.

“I—I’m sorry?” he managed to stammer out in his shock.

Grey Eyes gestured to the two coffees and said, “No,” again.  He looked incredibly frustrated, and Simon had no idea what to do.  He’d never really run across this sort of situation on the other side of town. 

Agatha, the shift supervisor, stepped in at that point with an apologetic smile.

“Sorry! He’s new, we’ll get started on your drink right away.  No, no, it’s on the house today.  Sorry about that! Here’s another free drink coupon for all your troubles, I’m so sorry,” she said, shooing Simon away while flipping her hair prettily.  “It’s a grande coffee in a venti cup with extra whip cream.”

Simon grit his teeth and made the drink ( _Who the hell needs this much whipped cream?_ ).  He decided that Grey Eyes hated him, and was in a bad mood for the rest of his shift.

“He didn’t even say thank you!”

Penny had tried to reason with him, “He never says thank you.  He’s got us all trained to make his drink without saying anything.  I doubt he hates you, he’s probably just having a bad day! Now, stop glaring at him and clean your damn milk pitchers, your bar is a mess!”

Simon didn’t believe her in the least, and would often hide in the back to avoid serving him, and when he did have to serve him, he always made up some ridiculous story.  “His girlfriend must’ve dumped him again”, or “his Ferrari must’ve gotten a smudge on it”, or “He probably got a 99 on his latest essay instead of 100”.

Today, Penny made a suggestion before Simon could open his big mouth.

“Maybe he doesn’t speak English,” she said.

“That’s… wait, that would make sense.”  Simon’s eyes followed Grey Eyes as he carefully sat down at his usual table in the back corner by the window, headphones still solidly in place.

Simon then spent the rest of his shift pretending to clean the tables around Grey Eyes, and (unfortunately for Penny’s sanity) ruled out that theory because, “He’d studying Shakespeare, Penny.  Shakespeare! The original shit too, with all the _thou_ ’s and _wherefore_ ’s.”

“How close did you get to him to get all that?” Penny rubbed her temple.  “Don’t answer that, just stop stalking our customers.”

“I’m not stalking him! I’m studying him.”

“You’re on a very fine line between the two.”

“Let’s agree to disagree.”

Then, one chilly Friday morning (which was weird because Grey Eyes never came in on Fridays or mornings), Simon finally got his answer.

Grey Eyes didn’t have his headphones in today.  That was also really weird.  What was even weirder was he went straight to his usual table without ordering anything.

Simon immediately told Penny this.

“Don’t make me go over and explain that he has to order something to stay here,” he groaned (he did not whine, no matter what Penny said).

Penny poked her head around the corner from the back room.  She sighed deeply.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”  But before she could, the door jingled open again, and a woman with long black hair, a leather jacket, ripped jeans and obnoxious combat boots strolled in as though she owned the place.  She pushed expensive looking sunglasses to the top of her head and scanned the room with narrowed eyes before spotting her target—Grey Eyes—and her face split into a shit-eating grin.  Judging by the resemblance, Simon concluded she was either his sister or his aunt.

“Oh no, there’s two of them.  Save me,” he groaned quietly.

Penny elbowed him in the ribs, hard.

Then, Combat Boots started waving her hands at Grey Eyes, who started walking over to the till while flicking his fingers back at her and— _oh my god, I’m such an idiot_.

“I’ll have a grande mocha,” Combat Boots announced, leaning up against the counter, “What d’you want, Baz?” she said and signed that.

 _I am such an absolute fucking idiot_.

“Usual? You have a usual?” Combat Boots’ grin turned into a smirk as she glanced over at Simon.  “You come here a lot, do you? I wonder why.”

Grey Eyes—Baz huffed and shoved Combat Boots’ shoulder.  The motion moved his long hair a bit and Simon saw a hearing aid.

Simon ran up their orders, and let Penny make the drinks.  He retreated to the back room and proceeded to hit his head on the desk repeatedly.

“I guess that explains a lot,” Penny leaned up against the wall, keeping an eye on the front and Simon.

“I have to apologize.”  He stood up with purpose.

“What for?”

“For being such an asshole.”  Simon walked out into the lobby, turned on his heel and walked straight back.  “How do I apologize?”

“Write him a letter? Learn some sign? Try talking to him? Or you could—Simon, wait.  Your shift’s not ever, and you’re not leaving me here alone.  Simon!”

Simon spent the weekend juggling essays ( _why the hell did I think history was a good major?_ ), work, and watching sign language tutorials on YouTube.  He tried writing a letter, but he was never good at words, and saying ‘Sorry I was such an asshole, please forgive me, and also you’regorgeouspleasegoonadatewithme’ wasn’t quite as eloquent as he needed to be.  He didn’t want to fuck things up more than he already had.

But when Baz was standing in front of him on Tuesday afternoon (3 p.m., like clockwork), everything he’d practiced and planned in front of the mirror all weekend was immediately erased from his mind, and he was left staring into dark grey eyes like an idiot.

Simon lifted his hand and signed the only this his brain was capable of thinking at the moment.

‘Sorry.’

Baz raised an elegant eyebrow and walked away.

Simon knelt down on the floor with his arms spread on the counter.

_Idiot! Was that even the sign for sorry? Did I just fuck everything up even more?_

Someone knocked on the countertop near his hands.

Simon slowly stood up.

Baz was smirking at him, sans headphones.

“Are you—can—can you hear me?” Simon asked stupidly.  He was so happy there was barely anyone in the café and that Penny was busy counting shit in the back.

“Yes, now I can,” Baz’s voice was even sexier when he said more than one word in a row.  “I usually take these,” he gestured to his hearing aids, “out after I’ve had four hours of lecture.  The headphones are so people don’t try talk to me.  Mostly because I don’t like talking to people.  For you, I’ll make an exception this time.”

“Sorry, I just—I don’t—I’ve never… I’m just going to shut up.”  Simon turned away, his face burning with embarrassment.  He quickly made Baz’s coffee and set it down on the counter.  “It’s on me today, I was such an idiot before, and I’m really, really sorry.”

Baz smiled.  It was almost sexier than the sound of his voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a nonchalant wave of his hand.  Was that a blush settling in on Baz’s high cheekbones?

Yes.  Yes it was.

“You want to go out for coffee?” _Oh my GOD Simon, why would you say that? You idiot!_

Baz raised an eyebrow again ( _I wish he’d stop doing that, it’s so hot_ ).

“Right now?” he asked with a laugh.

_I can’t decide what’s the best.  His hair, his smile, his voice, his laugh, all of the above?_

“I think if I left now, Penny would kill me.”

“Later then,” Baz took a pen out and scribbled something on the back of a receipt before taking his coffee to his usual table.

_Baz just gave me his number._

Simon just stared down at it, smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> I know! What's this? Not a Wolfstar fic? I'm just as shocked as you. I kind of have another episode of my Muggle Mishaps series planned, but then I was hit by sudden inspiration for this fic and... yeah... here we are...
> 
> This is also kind of a present for Bunny b/c she's precious. (and yes, Bunny, I know I should be asleep now, stop yelling at me~)
> 
> Have a fantastic day everyone, and remember! Be careful of snap judgements b/c you don't know a person's whole story.


End file.
